Category Archives: Garden

I do have to admit that I ate one of the first of our red ones to ripen yesterday, and it was the best tasting raspberry I’ve ever eaten. Way better than any of the golden ones so far. Not sure why, but all of the red ones we’ve gotten so far are tiny – less than half the size of the gold ones.

My father has a theory he calls the Unit Flavor Theory – basically that things like strawberries have a finite amount of flavor that each berry can have, and so the small ones will have a much more concentrated flavor than the big ones will. Elephant garlic is a fine example, too: giant and bland. The little red raspberry I ate yesterday proved his theory to me once again. Mmmmmm. Raspberries.

This morning the garden yielded up:

golden raspberries: 4lbs 6.7oz (2006g)

red rasberries: 5.7oz (161g)

beets: 3.4oz (96g)

peas: 2.6oz (75g)

I started picking berries with the smallish mixing bowl, and had to go swap it out for one of the giant ones. I honestly have no idea what to do with all these raspberries. Ideas?

The poor raspberry plants, of which we started with 6 red and 3 or 4 golden, have become a terrifying thicket, and several of the plants have collapsed from the weight of the berries.

While I was out relieving the plants of their tasty, tasty burden, one of our neighbors stopped by with his two (ridiculously adorable) kids and asked what I was picking – none of them had ever heard of or tasted a golden raspberry. Aaron seemed ok with them, the kids would cheerfully have wrestled me to the ground and absconded with the bowl of berries if given half a chance.

Even after feeding the kids enough berries to completely ruin their dinners, I ended up with 2lbs 9.3 ounces (1171 grams) of golden raspberries, 9 grams of red raspberries, and 2lbs 9.8 ounces (1185 grams) of strawberries.

The rest of the garden is coming along very, very slowly. Half of the beets have bolted and will have to be replanted, all of the bok choy has bolted, and everything else is just tiny so far. The carrots never bothered to come up at all. Ver’ sad, that.

And, because I can’t be arsed to go get my camera and take a picture of the bounty of berries, here’s a picture of a cat (since that’s what the internet is for, right?), specifically Matt’s parents’ cat Strider:

The rest of the things that got planted (different peas, artichokes, broccoli, leeks, garlic chives, mystery oniony-thing, celery, kohl rabi, and rainbow chard) are all doing really well except for the peas, which seem to be Not Happy. While they’re technically growing, the leaves have turned an odd shade of yellow, with reddish edges. Doesn’t look good. Nope, not at all.

Still have the raspberries and blueberries to procure and plant, and the cilantro, sage, and peonies to get into the ground. Other than that? It’s all about the waiting. Which I’m not good at. Not even a little bit good at. Nope. Not good.